Can Claude Make Videos? What Works in 2026

Claude cannot output a video file. No Claude model generates video, and Claude does not take video files as input. But Claude can still make videos: it writes code that a framework renders into MP4, it edits existing footage by driving FFmpeg, and it can call AI video models on your behalf. Each route needs a skill or a tool, and each produces a different kind of video. This guide sorts them out.

The three routes

Route	What Claude does	What you get	Start with
Code that renders video	Writes HTML or React, which a framework renders frame by frame	Motion graphics, explainers, product videos, captions, charts	Hyperframes, Remotion
Editing footage	Transcribes, plans cuts, then runs FFmpeg	A cut, graded and subtitled version of your recording	Video Use
AI video models	Writes prompts and calls a model's API	Generated footage: people, scenes, camera moves	Runway, Pika

The first route is the one behind the current wave of motion-graphics videos made with Claude. It needs Claude Code or another coding agent, because rendering runs on your computer.

Route 1: code that renders video

Motion graphics are mostly text, shapes, charts and screenshots moving on a timeline. That is something Claude can describe precisely in code. A framework then opens each frame in a headless browser, captures it, and encodes the frames into a video with FFmpeg. Rendering is deterministic: the same code gives the same video every time.

Two frameworks have official skills:

• Hyperframes, from HeyGen. A video is an HTML file with timing attributes, animated with GSAP, CSS, Lottie or Three.js. Its skills include ready-made workflows such as Product Launch Video, Faceless Explainer, Motion Graphics for short kinetic type and logo stings, and PR to Video. Apache 2.0 licence.
• Remotion. A video is a React component. Its skills cover creating, writing, previewing and rendering a project, plus captions and maps. Free for individuals and small companies; larger companies need a licence. The setup is in Remotion with Claude Code.

To choose between them, read Hyperframes vs Remotion.

Other code-based skills cover narrower formats:

• Manim CE Best Practices and Manim Composer for maths and science animations in the style of 3Blue1Brown.
• Text to Lottie for Lottie animations, such as logo reveals and lower thirds, that play in apps and on the web.
• GSAP Core for animation on web pages, which Hyperframes also uses for video.
• Slack GIF Creator, from Anthropic, for small animated GIFs.

What a session looks like

With Hyperframes installed in Claude Code, a first prompt can be as plain as the example in its README: "Using /hyperframes, create a 10-second product intro with a fade-in title, a background video, and subtle background music." Claude plans the video, writes the HTML, checks it, and renders it. You then preview the result and ask for changes in plain language, one at a time.

Route 2: editing footage

Claude cannot watch your recording, but it can read a transcript and still frames. Editing skills use that: they transcribe the footage word by word, propose a cut, wait for your approval, then run FFmpeg to cut, grade and subtitle.

• Video Use, from the Browser Use team, edits talking heads, tutorials and interviews this way and checks its own render at every cut.
• FFmpeg from Digital Samba's toolkit handles conversion, trimming and compression.
• Embedded Captions adds styled captions to an existing talking-head video.

Route 3: AI video models

When you need footage that does not exist, such as a person speaking or a camera moving through a scene, Claude can call a video generation model. Claude writes the prompt and sends the request; the model produces the clip. These skills need an account and an API key with the model's provider, and generation is usually paid per clip.

• Runway Generate Video for text-to-video and image-to-video with the Runway API.
• Pika's skills, such as Pika Explainer, produce finished formats like explainers, UGC-style ads and product videos.
• Genmedia runs fal.ai's catalogue of image and video models.
• Replicate Prompt Videos covers prompting video models on Replicate.

Route 3 combines with route 1. A common pattern is to generate a few clips with a model, then have Claude assemble them with titles, captions and music in Hyperframes or Remotion.

What you need

• Claude Code or another coding agent that supports skills. Rendering happens on your machine.
• Node.js for Hyperframes and Remotion. Hyperframes asks for Node.js 22 or later and FFmpeg.
• API keys only for route 3, and for skills that add generated voiceover or music.

Claude on the web can sketch an animation as HTML or SVG in an artifact, which is useful for trying an idea. It cannot render that to MP4.

Where to go next

• Install your first video skill with the steps in how to use Claude skills.
• Browse every video and media skill in the directory.